Over the years I've written about using my Pocket PC during my annual trip to Uruguay, where we visit my wife's family. The long journey coupled with my modest ability to communicate in Spanish means that I have extra time to enjoy, explore, and put my Pocket PC to full use. (By the way, if you like quiet and peaceful ocean beauty hosted by an intelligent and warm-hearted people, I highly recommend Uruguay's Atlantic coast.)
Accessorizing my iPAQ
Before leaving on the long trip, I visited our New Products Editor, Diane Dumas, whose office is jammed with Pocket PC software and accessories. Among other goodies, she equipped me with a 4GB Hitachi CF microdrive, an HP Bluetooth headset, and an HP extended 2880mAh battery for my iPAQ hx2750.
The hx2750 has become my Pocket PC of choice because it's sturdy, includes both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, and comes with a huge amount of internal storage memory (a total of over 150 MB of user-accessible RAM and flash ROM). I used the internal memory for the variety of programs I installed for the trip, and used CF and SD storage cards for my music, learning tapes, video, and photos. Given that all my software is stored internally, I can swap out storage cards without losing device functionality.
Loading up
For several weeks before leaving I had been beta testing our Best of Everything CD. That made it easy to load up my iPAQ with the top games, numeric conversion software, a Spanish language learning tool, a media player, and a variety of utilities … anything I thought might be fun and useful on my trip.
The Best of Everything CD has two excellent desktop tools for converting DVDs to Pocket PC format: DVD to Pocket PC (http://www.makayama.com) and Pocket DVD Studio (http://www.pqdvd.com). The latter proved a better tool for my purposes, since it had a simpler interface for converting multiple videos residing on one DVD. I converted the first seasons of several favorite TV shows and the shorts from The Eighth Habit, a new Steven Covey book that includes a DVD.
I also purchased the highly recommended Pimsleur Language Spanish Audio CD course. I used the “rip” function on the desktop PC version of Windows Media 10 to convert the audio lessons for listening on my Pocket PC. On the Hitachi microdrive I stored the lessons, the TV shows, my music, five movies, and audio lectures from a favorite teacher.
Thanks to the extended battery and all the converted media, I was all set to survive the 20+ hour trip from Fairfield, Iowa to Atlantida, Uruguay. The easy-to-install extended battery made the iPAQ hx2750 thicker, but surprisingly, I did not find it especially awkward. The original battery served as a backup.
Bluetooth Headphones
During my trip, I came to appreciate the convenience and overall usefulness of HP's new Bluetooth headphones. It was a pleasure to do without wires, whether I was running on the beach, cooking breakfast, or lying down. And once I started a playlist running in Windows Media Player, I could pause it, continue playing it, control the volume, and advance to the next track—all using controls on the headphones! They fit comfortably and provided top quality sound throughout the trip.
Publisher Hal Goldstein running on the beach in Uruguay, listening to Spanish lessons on his Pocket PC using HP BlueTooth headphones.
HP includes a nice carrying bag for the headphones and charger that comes with them. Unfortunately, the combined size of the headphones and charger makes the overall packing not very portable. And because the headphones need to be recharged every 8 hours, you can't travel without the charger. The other downside is the $99 price.
Despite these disadvantages, I strongly recommend this product, especially if you listen to a lot of audio on your Pocket PC, or would like to.
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